Apple Butter from Neighbourhood Apples

There is an apple tree growing around the corner from my house.
I am not the only woman in my neighbourhood – or even my building – who visits this tree when its fruit is coming down. My neighbour, who is older than me and who also a gleaner, tells me that she’s pretty sure they are “Clairmont” apples (though I could be mis-remembering the name she gave me) – a relative of McIntosh, anyway.

There is another apple tree growing about a 40-minute walk south of where I live. It has small, yellow fruit (possibly a Greensleaves apple, or maybe a Yellow Ingestrie…? I don’t actually have any idea).

Between these two trees, I’ve managed to pick (after cutting out the bad spots, of which there were many since I was picking them off the ground rather than off the tree) what came to about five cups of diced apples – three cups of the yellow, and two cups of the green-with-a-red-blush.

I’ve currently got them in the slow-cooker with:
1 C granulated sugar
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp each: cloves, cinamon
Pinch salt

By the end of the day, I’m hoping to have 2-3 cups worth of apple butter (once I’ve hit them with the imersion-mixer, after they’ve been cooking for a while, in order to smooth out the purree) to go with my 3-and-a-bit cups of peach butter.

I’ve included a LOT more sugar in this recipe (and less vinegar) than I did with the peach butter… partly because the peaches are sweeter than the apples.
I’m hoping this works out okay. It’ll be a very sweet apple butter which, hopefully, won’t be too sweet to enjoy[1].
Currently, my kitchen smells like apple pie, though, so I’m not complaining. 🙂

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] I’m discovering, as I do more canning and, more to the point, as I eat the fruits of my labour (hahaha), that I prefer jams (and similar) that are from tart fruit like sour cherries, raspberries, crab apples, currants, and rosehips… Grape jelly doesn’t really do anything for me (I say, while still have 3+ cups of the stuff loitering in my pantry with no clue what to do about them) and peach preserves work better (and have a lower pH… always helpful) for me when they have a good dose of (mild) vinegar – e.g.: pear cider vinegar – added into the mix.
Super sweet stuff like white mulberries or strawberries often end up with rhubarb added in to help balance the sweet/sour mix.